The protection of vulnerable road users (VRU) is a critical aspect of road safety. Consumer protection organizations have already established guidelines for the sake of VRU protection, which govern the development of new vehicles and, up to now, mainly concentrate on pedestrians and cyclists.
The continuously increasing requirements on future vehicle systems regarding safety, costs, development times and the environmental impact lead to growing challenges within the automotive development process. To overcome these challenges, the continuation of the digitalization and virtualization of the development process is of vital importance. A reliable virtual vehicle development calls for simulation methods and models, which are optimized and validated based on the results of few real-world experiments.
Using X-ray technology enables the obser-vation of the dynamic behavior of hidden vehicle structures under crash conditions. In addition to novel measurement technol- ogy, necessary algorithms for analysis and evaluation are developed within the scope of industrial and research projects.
In the light of digital transformation and increasingly data-driven research approaches, it is an essential goal to address the entire life cycle of research data and to sustainably exploit the data in versatile ways by the consistent implementation of the FAIR guiding principles (FAIR: findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). The purposes of digital data management, which builds upon semantic technologies, include maximizing the added value from research data.
A short-circuit caused by external forces, as they occur in crash situations, leads to an uncontrolled discharge of the battery cell. As a consequence, the battery cell heats up locally and, if it comes to the worst, this results in an explosive reaction of the cell.
A big step towards the X-ray crash test has been taken: With the linear accelerator LINAC, EMI is equipped with a radiation source with which all materials commonly used in automotive manufacturing can be X-rayed. The short X-ray pulse duration allows tracing deformation processes that occur during a crash.
At Fraunhofer EMI, research to improve the crashworthiness of utility vehicles is conducted.
A car crash often happens very suddenly. Nevertheless, occupants are sometimes prepared – they see the crash coming and react accordingly: they contract their muscles, fully apply the brakes and brace against the steering wheel. With virtual human models, muscle stiffness can be simulated in different degrees, which allows making realistic statements regarding injury risks. Simultaneously, such models help to improve the safety of automobiles.
Up to now, the exact deformation processes taking place deep inside car structures during crash remained hidden. Using the X-ray Car Crash (X-CC) technology, the possibility of observing the said dynamic behavior of hidden structures under crash loading is investigated at the crash center of Fraunhofer EMI.
X-raying is an established material research technology, which in the industrial sector has thus far been restricted primarily to static and quasistatic analyses. With the X-CC technology, Fraunhofer EMI combines X-ray technology with highly dynamic deformation processes under crash conditions and thereby contributes to the overall understanding of the behavior of inner car structures during a crash. Read more.
Fraunhofer Institute for High-Speed Dynamics, Ernst-Mach-Institut, EMI